An
Anarchist on Devils IslandOften writers on Anarchism use fictional
anecdotes from literature as history; here however we see that anarchist history has been
turned into literature. The story of Clement Duval was lifted and, shorn of all politics,
turned into the bestseller Papillon.

Paris, October 1886. Hidden in the shadow of
an archway, Brigadier Rossignol tugged nervously at his moustache. If everything went
according to plan, he was about to bring another brilliant police operation to an end; yet
another success to add to his already fat personal record. He had no reason to doubt the
success of the plan. He was a self-confident man, the Brigadier, one of the Calabrians of
his time, famous for the courage and efficiency with which he persecuted wrongdoers. This
time it was a question of arresting a dangerous subversive, suspected of burglary and
arson, and the ambush had been planned with all necessary precautions; so there was
nothing to worry about. There were 20 cops strategically placed; he himself was there
under the archway, ready to give the signal. If he was nervous it was because of the
waiting.

Perhaps it was through an excessive faith in his
plan, or through his obsessive desire to cut a good figure, or for both of these reasons,
that as soon as the person in question appeared, Brigadier Rossignol jumped without
hesitation from his hiding place, followed by his colleagues.

In a flash he was on top of his quarry, shouting
like a madman his favourite phrase of all those available to him in the police vocabulary:
"I arrest you in the name of the law". This was the technique he used in such
cases, both to frighten the suspect and to dissuade them from any idea of resisting
arrest. But it didnt work. Instead of trembling resignation, his cry was met with a
snarl of "And I kill you in the name of freedom!" To confirm his intentions, the
man had drawn a long-blade knife. The scuffle that followed was very violent. While the
other participants vainly tried to block him, the persistently aggressive individual made
half a dozen lunges at Rossignol and, in a desperate attempt to get free, managed to put
out one of the Brigadiers eyes. In the end, numbers told. He was handcuffed and
taken to jail. Meanwhile the Brigadier went to hospital, one up in terms of success, one
down in terms of eyes. The antagonist of the overconfident policeman was Clement Duval,
anarchist expropriator, who that day had bloodily finished his career as a militant
revolutionary, to start another as a convict deported to Guyana. The inescapable
consequence of his violent act of rebellion was to be a joyless existence, suffering under
the yoke of exploitation and tyranny. From this point of view, what happened to Duval is
of great significance because it is a mirror of an epoch, in which is exhibited the
reactionary face of newly-industrialised France, imperialist, exploitative and repressive.
This story could have happened to anyone at that time, and in effect it happened to many.
It is in its unexceptional nature that the value of the story lies.

PROLETARIAN
Duval was of working class origin and he quickly learned what this meant. He had his first
brusque contact with reality in the Franco- Prussian war in 1870, when he was just twenty.
As a member of the fifth infantry battalion he was sent to the front, there to find out
for himself what the glory of the nation cost, and who had to pay the price. Thanks to the
French armys standards of hygiene, he contracted smallpox, from which he was lucky
to recover. At Villorau he was seriously wounded by a mortar bomb and had to spend six
months in a miserable military hospital.

He returned to Paris in 1873, where, as his father
had died, he was now the sole breadwinner of the family: he was still in one piece, but he
suffered for the rest of his life with arthritis and rheumatism  a legacy of his war
wounds and the stay in hospital. Ironically, he found that the family for which he had to
provide no longer existed as such. His young wife (who had married him just before he left
for the front), unable to cope with being left alone, had had an affair with another man,
and poor Duval, after the joys of the martial life, found himself wearing horns on his
return from the war.

With regard to sexual customs and extra-marital
relationships, the mentality of the era was not very broad-minded. and Duval, although he
was he was of progressive views was in no state of mind to view matters with the serenity
his ides required. Fourteen months of bitterness and jealousy followed, until the young
couple succeeded in forgetting the matter. It was the beginning of a period of relative
tranquillity. He worked as a mechanic in a Paris factory, and she took care of domestic
affairs; and his life, although hard, seemed almost happy compared with that of the front,
even if it was not all hearts and flowers. At the factory, fourteen hours a day under iron
discipline, always with the threat of the sack for any form of minor deficiency. At home,
a poor life, dirty and squalid, long silences because of fatigue and misery. it was normal
working class life in the industrialised countries at the time.

It was in this period that Duvals libertarian
ides matured, he refined them through reading and direct experience, realising the nature
of exploitation and that the only chance for the emancipation of the lower classes lay in
revolution. But, more than for his subversive ideas and intentions, he was known for his
proud firmness of character, for his honesty, and for the passion which, in spite of
everything, he put into his work.

But he was a marked man. Not by a supernatural
destiny; not even so much by the ideas he professed; but by his position as one of the
exploited, one of the rejects from which society demanded everything- grief, sacrifice,
resignation and gave nothing in return. After just three years of normal life, a terrible
attack of rheumatism came to remind him of his battles for the fatherland. He was
bedridden almost continuously until 1878. He lost his job, and if previously there had
been poverty, now there was pauperdom. And, with misery came family quarrels,
recriminations, the contempt of others, the anguish of an existence without prospects and
without mercy. Desperation. Hatred.

EXPROPRIATOR
...And Duval stole. In order to live, to eat, without questions about morality, only
conscious of the fact that he had no alternative. The first time, he took a few francs
from the till in the railway ticket office while the clerk was absent, and all went well.
The second time, a little later, he tried the same thing in the same place, but he was
caught in the act. The immediate result was a year in Mazas prison and the final departure
of his wife. But this was not the only result, nor was it the most important. That first
contact with illegality made him think and convinced him not only of the substantial
legality of theft (or individual reappropriation" as it was called then) but of the
possibility that it was a means of struggle. A means, let it be understood, not an end in
itself. It was precisely in this conception, whether or not it is acceptable in a plan of
revolutionary strategy, that Clement Duvals greatness of spirit stands out. Others,
after him, would turn to theft, but only for its own sake, substituting individual revolt
(however understandable) for revolution, convinced that all that was necessary was to rob
the rich, without thinking about what to do next. On the other hand, Duval saw theft as a
means for financing political activity, for printing subversive literature, agitating
among the masses, getting hold of the arms needed to confront the bourgeois exploiters, in
effect a tool for making the anarchist revolution.

Although solitary because of the conditions in which
he was forced to act, his was not an egoistic struggle. After his first unaware attempts,
he knew how to go beyond his own personal tragedy, finding in it a point of departure for
a fuller vision, the rationale of a struggle fought not for his own benefit, nor for that
of a few others, but for everyone.

When Duval was released from prison, he started
actively spreading libertarian propaganda in the Paris factories, and he realised he was
at war. Violence was not excluded: this was a war without international conventions or any
aristocratic notions of fair play. Every wage claim was met by massive sackings, every
strike was met with gunfire, many were wounded or killed, every public demonstration was
an occasion for mass arrests (and then it was jail, deportation or the guillotine). Duval
thought (and who is to say that he was wrong?) that the only way to answer violence was
with violence. And he answered.

A piano factory, the offices of a bus company, a
furniture factory, the Choubersky workshops where he himself worked, the firm of
Belvalette de Passy; all places where the most inhuman exploitation was practised, where
workers had their health ruined for fourteen hours a day in exchange for four miserable
francs, where the most unfair advantages were taken, all these became ruins, gutted by
fire or explosives. It was in this period that the figure of the anarchist bomber, sombre
vindicator of the wrongs done to the proletariat, nightmare of the bourgeoisie became part
of the iconography of the regime. By now Duval was one.

The episode which brought him to ruin happened on
the night of 25th October 1886. Duval broke into the apartment of Mme. Lemaire,
a rich lady who lived at Rue de Monceau. The residents were away on holiday in the
country, and he was able to move about undisturbed: he carefully put aside all the
precious objects that he could find, and smashed all that he was forced to leave behind
because it was too heavy or inconvenient. While leaving, he accidentally (for he had no
desire to attract attention while he was at work) set fire to the house. The damage caused
by both the theft and fire was worth more than ten thousand francs, a respectable sum,
which gave a certain renown to the event. The police were not slow in finding out who was
responsible. The expropriated jewels, put up for sale too soon, left an obvious trail,
which led back to the fence, and thus to Duval. Taken by surprise in front of
a comrades door, both were arrested, not without trouble, as we have already
mentioned.

THE TRIAL
The trial, which was held on 11 and 12 February 1887 at the Seine Court of Assizes,
was also a far from tranquil affair. The accused answered the judges with firmness,
refusing the role of the common delinquent which they wished to assign him, proclaiming
loudly the political nature of his activity, and contesting the pretence that the men in
robes were handing out justice. From being the accused he became accuser, denouncing
embezzlement, the injustice of exploitation, mystification, and the wrongs suffered by
himself and those like him. The crowd which packed out the court-room was carried away by
his vehemence, and echoed his words.

The final hearing ended uproariously with Duval
expelled shouting "Long live anarchy", the police overwhelmed by the crowd, the
judges in flight to their chambers, and then insults and blows, fights and arrests. An
hour later, when the uproar had been quelled, the Court delivered its verdict: death. A
penalty dictated by fear, certainly disproportionate to the gravity of the offences under
trial. On February 28th perhaps revealing this lack of proportion, the
President of the Republic commuted the sentence to one of deportation for life.

Freedom was closing its doors on him, and the
inferno was to take him in, forever.

At four oclock on the afternoon of 25th
March, Duval departed the city on the Orne, from the military fortress of Toulon, bound
for the vaults of Guyana. He had a ghastly anticipation of what to expect from the very
first day of his stay in the fortress. His own words, for all their tone, are so eloquent
as to not need comment: "... I would never dare to repeat the experience of the
putrid corruption which poisoned every human emotion and sentiment to the last stages of
decomposition. Along the walls, lying on their beds made from scraps of material those
exhausted people who had said goodbye to all hope... In hidden corners, where neither the
flickering light of the oil-lamps nor the gaze of the curious reached, they were trembling
and sobbing; lust showed itself in delirious, bestial fornication. One of Sodoms
slums, built in the shade of the well-meaning bourgeoisies Third Republic, a tribute
to their modest morality and their positive penal science."1

THE INFERNOThe thirty day sea trip aboard the prison ship to Guyana dispelled any remaining
illusions. His companions in misfortune were thieves, assassins, soulless brutes; the sons
of abjection, misery and ignorance. Lebou, sentenced for having shot his mother; Faure who
had killed his brother for money, then chopped him up and fed him to the pigs; Mentier,
who had killed two old women in order to rape the corpses and other worthy products of the
society which had begotten them. This frightening section of humanity was paraded on deck
for inspection every day, and met with the mockery, vulgarity and stupid comments of the
crew, the guards, and the civilian passengers.

Duval was not the sort to accept this treatment
willingly. On the first occasion he rebelled, answering the provocations in the same vein,
and thus he had a taste of what was awaiting him in the penitentiary: naked as a worm, he
was thrown into a water-logged cell where he stayed for two days, unable to stand upright
because the ceiling was too low, and unable to lie down because the cell was too small.
Repression inside repression.

Guyana was a real hell-hole, a filthy abyss of
violence and depravity made even more intolerable by the hot and humid tropical climate.
There the lie was given to the hypocritical idea that prison can lead to atonement and
repentance. Guyana was synonymous with forced labour, fettered ankles, rotting food,
punishment cells, swarms of insects, scurvy, dysentery. Redemption? In captivity, men lost
their health, their dignity, they died of disease and want, their bodies and spirits
scarred, humiliated, broken, brutalised, reduced against their will to the level of
animals. The more assertive among them achieved some squalid privilege at the expense of
their companions. The most cynical curried favour with the guards by crawling and
informing on the others. The weakest went under. The penitentiary was the perverted image
of all the vices, every misery, all the oppression of the society which had produced it.
Because of this, those who had not submitted before, when they were free, did not accept
the idea of submitting now that they were in a society that was more vicious but otherwise
not dissimilar. Duval (and in general all the anarchists who ended up in prison) was no
exception.

The story of his stay on the terrible island is the
story of his pride of his unbeatable fighting spirit, of the constant struggle with the
situation, not to lose his identity, of his refusal to fall into the abyss of misery that
confronted him. And he succeeded. He opposed the guards traps, rebelled against the
injustices, helped the most wretched fellow prisoners, unmasked spies and provocateurs.
The cruellest bullies, the drunken directors, the scum, the murderers, the mindless brutes
that peopled the prison camp, learned to pay him a sort of respect, certainly worthy of
better circles, in which admiration for his correctness was united with fear for his
toughness. A respect that was merited, if one thinks of the terrible price that had to be
paid for it.

THE REVOLTOn the night of 21/22 October 1895 there broke out a revolt on the island,
organised by the quite large group of anarchists who were there at the time. It was a
hopeless enterprise, undertaken more to compensate for the continual vexations which the
comrades had to put up with, rather than for any real hope of success. Duval took an
active part in its preparation, which was long, much disputed and laborious. But he was
sent elsewhere as a punishment and had to cease his active contribution. All in all, this
was a stroke of luck. In fact, the prison administration was informed on all the goings on
through the reports of a couple of informers, and had decided to take this opportunity to
do away with the whole anarchist group, which caused them continual problems because of
the comrades independent character. And so it happened. As soon as the rebels left
their rooms they found themselves confronted by the guards rifles. "Cold blood
and no quarter given" had been the orders of the Commander Bonafi, chief of Internal
Security, whose men had got as drunk as pigs for the occasion. In an incredible massacre,
the following anarchists were overpowered and mercilessly killed, one by one: Garnier,
Boesie, Simon, Le Leauthier, Lebault, Masservin, Dervaux, Chevenet, Mesuesis, Kesvau,
Marpeaux; the next day their bullet ridden bodies were thrown into the sea for the sharks
to eat, while the hurriedly appointed Commission of Inquiry continued the repression,
arresting and putting in irons anyone who was even slightly suspected of helping the
rebels.

Duval stayed fourteen years in Guyana. In this time,
he tried to escape more than twenty times, seizing every chance, every means: on rafts, on
stolen or patiently built boats, hiding in ships that passed. Every time something went
wrong.

He was captured, suffered from the inevitable
punishment, and began again. Had he given up after the first attempts he would have died
in prison like so many others, killed either by fever or by the guards. Instead, unable to
resign himself to his fate, he was saved. After trying again and again, the time finally
came when luck turned his way.

THE ESCAPE
On 13 April 1901, Duval, with eight of his fellow-prisoners, put to sea in a fragile
canoe and silently made for the open sea. It was in the dead of night, and no guards
noticed the escape until the next day. Thus the convicts, rowing with all their strength,
made an undisturbed getaway. In the morning they raised a sail and made for the
North-east, to avoid the territories under French jurisdiction. A warship came close to
them without showing the slightest interest, and continued on its way. A good start.

Backed by a light breeze, they sailed all day. At
the helm was a cabin-boy, an excellent sailor, whose experience of the sea helped to keep
the morale of the others high. But in the evening the weather changed, turned nasty. The
breeze soon became a hurricane, making huge waves that filled the boat with water, forcing
the men to a nerve-wracking bailing. Further, the cabin-boy was quite unable to see in the
dark because of a lack of vitamins in the penitentiarys diet, and thus his ability
was rendered less useful. It was a hellish night, and they many times risked ending up as
shark food.

The next day weather conditions were better, and
Duval and his companions soon sighted land. It was the district of Paramaraibo, in Dutch
Guyana. Outside the claws of the penitentiary administration. The worst was past. However,
the fugitives were still in danger. As escaped convicts, they could still be imprisoned by
the Dutch police. If the French got to hear about it, they could be extradited and again
interned on the terrible island.

The odyssey was not yet over. It would last another
two years. Always with false names, always on the lookout against discovery, always
struggling against hunger and the authorities, forced into the most worthless and poor
jobs. Duval made his way to British Guyana, then to Martinique, finally reaching Puerto
Rico. Here he stayed a while, somewhat recovering his broken health and recommencing a
normal life. On 16 June 1903 he left for the united States, with the prospect at least of
living in liberty. Deportation was by now only a memory, even if an indelible one.

Paul Albert

reprinted from Black Flag Quarterly, Vol 7, Number 5
(Winter 1984)

Clement Deval, Memorie Autobiografiche, 1929, p. 86

Birth
of the FAIEdgar Rodrigues On The Origins Of The
Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI)

For some time now I have been of the opinion that
our historians afford little if any attention to the Portugese-speaking movement and
anarchists (in Brazil and Portugal). Most of them simply are not familiar with the
writings of militants from those countries, do not translate their writings, the Anarchist
Encyclopaedia ignored their existence and FAI writers are still ignorant of their origins:
where did it come from? Whose idea was it to set it up? Who sketched its essential
guidelines? Who tabled the original proposal for an Iberian Anarchist
Federation for discussion and prior consent?

The FAI - and this needs saying - was an idea, a
proposal that emanated from the Portuguese militant Manuel Joaquim de Sousa, with backing
from Manuel Peres Fernandes who had been deported from Brazil in 1919 by the Epitacio
Pessoa government and found refuge in Lisbon in 1923-1924 with Doctor Pedro Vallina and
his family.

The launching of the FAI was first mooted at the
Congress of workers organisations from Portugal and Spain held in the Portuguese
town of Evora in 1923.

Manuel Joaquim de Sousa was an Oporto-born militant
who was extremely active and wrote books of great historical import. the congress was
attended by CNT representatives Manuel Peres, J. Ferrer Alvarado and Sebastian Clara: the
Portuguese CGT was represented by Manuel Joaquim de Sousa and Jose da Silva Santos
Arranha.

It was in fact at this get-together of
representatives from the Iberian libertarian trade union organisations that the Portuguese
Manuel Joaquim de Sousa suggested that the confederal libertarian movement in the Iberian
peninsula amalgamate, uniting Portuguese and Spanish anarchists into a single body. From
the outset he had support from Mauel Peres who had been born in Spain but raised in Rio de
Janiero, where he had discovered Anarchism.

In May 1926, having completed his project, Manuel
Joaquim de Sousa represented the Portuguese CGT at the Marseilles Congress: Manuel Peres
was representing the Portuguese Anarchist union (UAP). Thirty delegates from French and
Spanish groups and from the IWMA attended. Armando Borghi attended as representative of
the Italian Syndicalsit Union (USI).

The congress debated topics like: the reorganisation
of anarchist forces in Spain and France; disagreements on organisational matters; non-
recognition of the so-called Revolutionary Alliance which advocated dealings with
politicians; and the strengthening of the prisoners aid committees.

Finally, at that congress, Manuel Joaquim de Sousa,
with Manuel Peress support, mooted once again unification of the Iberian
movement and (this time) succeeded in securing agreement on the following points:
"1) Congress agrees to launch an Iberian Anarchist Federation, notifying
Portugals Anarchist Union of this decision: 2) in view of the abnormal and dangerous
situation obtaining in Spain, the liaison committee is to be based in Lisbon: 3) its
launch is a matter for the Portuguese Anarchist Union, the latter being entitled to seek
aid and support as well as collaboration from Spanish anarchists resident in that place:
4) whensoever it sees fit, that committee will summon an Iberian congress in order to put
the finish touches to said federation: 5) the liaison committee will be provisional,
pending that congress: 6) Spanish anarchists are to be consulted so that they may give
their endorsement to these resolutions."

"The Portuguese Anarchist Unions congress
will be attended by a delegate representing the Spanish anarchists movement"
(unpublished memoirs of Manuel Peres, in the possession of Edgar Rodrigues, published in
the Lisbon newspaper O Anarquista of 20 June 1976).

To escape from repression at home, the Spaniards
were scattered across the world just then.

On 28 May 1926, a military coup in Portugal forced
Portuguese anarchists to bring forward their planned congress and to relocate it to
Valencia, where it proceeded surreptitiously on 25 July 1927. It was attended by Francisco
Nobrea do Quintal, as the secretary of the Portuguese Anarchist Union. Germinal de Sousa,
son of the author of the draft project to launch an Iberian Anarchist Federation, and a
refugee in Spain at the time was also on hand. From the outset, he was a member of the new
anarchist body and was a participant, along with other Portuguese delegates, in the
National Plenum of Regionals held in Madrid on 30 and 31 October 1927. several delegates
from the Portuguese Anarchist Federation and from exiles were also present at the FAI
meeting on 31 January and 1 February 1936.

It is, as I see it, very important for the
historical record and for ourselves that we call to mind these true stories that sometimes
have a tendency to slip from our memories.

Please note that this is only a list of our most obscure requests.
We rely on comrades to donate recent books- which we may not know of, and common
classics which we can sell on at low prices. This provides a vital income for the
library.

BOOKSMichael BakuninGod and the state (1916) -first MEPA edition; first published in the US
by Benjamin R Tucker in 1883
Alexander Berkman
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist (1912)
Voltairine de CleyreSelected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre (1914)
Emma GoldmanAnarchism and Other Essays (intro. Hippolyte Havel, 1910. Second,
revised edition in both cloth and paper, 1911; third revised edition co-
published in paper [and cloth?] with A.C Fifield, London 1917)

PAMPHLETSVoltairine de Cleyre
Anarchism and American Traditions (1909)
Direct Action (1912)
Dominant Idea (1910)
McKinleys Assassination From the Anarchist Standpoint (1907)
The Mexican Revolt (1911)
Francisco FerrerThe Modern School
E.C. Ford And Wm Z. FosterSyndicalsim
Emma GoldmanAnarchism: What it Really Stands For (1911, 2nd? 1914?)
Anarchy versus Socialism, Marriage and Love (1911, 2nd 1914)
Patriotism: A Menace To Liberty (1908?)
Preparedness: The Road To Universal Slaughter (1916?)
The Psychology Of Political Violence (1911)
Syndicalism: The Modern Menace to Capitalism (1913)
The Tragedy Of Womens Emancipation (1910)
Trials and Speeches Of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman (1917)
The Truth About the Bolsheviki (1918)
Victims of Morality and the Failure of Christianity (1913, 2nd. ed. 1916)
What I believe (1908)
The White Slave Traffic (1909?)
Charles L. James
Anarchism and Malthus (1910)
Peter KropotkinAnarchist Morality (1916)
Errico Malatesta
A Talk about Anarchist Communism Between Two Workers
Theodore SchroderFree Speech For Radicals

A. A. Project
PO Box 381323
CAMBRIDGE
MA. 02238 1323
USA

Unknown Anarchists: Celso Persici
Celso Persici died in Nice (France) on 15 September 1988. Up until 1923, Celso, who came
from Bazzano (Bologna) had been very active in the Anarchist movement and in the USI
(Italian Syndicalist Union). Armando Borghi was the head of the USI in Bologna at the
time. He was also active in other places around the province of Bologna. Among his
associates, those whom I met and can recall now, were Luigi Fabbri, Gino Balestri, Primo
Proni (my grandfather), Emilio Predieri (an uncle of mine), Castagnoli and there were
others whose names I cannot call to mind. There was an uprising in Bazano (I cannot recall
the exact year) in which my father was an active participant, holding rallies in several
towns around the province and in Bologna.

Seventy people were arrested as a result
of that revolt and they included Gino Balestri and my father who got a bigger sentence
than anyone else (8 months served in the San Giovanni in Monte prison in Bologna). My
grandfather and my mother Libertaria attended the trial, as did many other comrades, in a
show of support for the jailed comrades. It was there that my mother and father first met.
The fascists, who were growing increasingly violent at the time, so much so that my
grandfather was picked up from his home one night by a gang of fascists who brought him to
the banks of the Reno river (in Bologna) to shoot him, and someone miraculously saved him.
My father was harassed several times and beaten almost to death, as a result of which he
was obliged to go into exile in France in 1923. In Paris he was active alongside many
other Italian and French comrades. The ones I can recall include Gino Balestri, Edoardo
Angeli, the Gigliolis (father and sons- Libero, Equo, Rivoluzio and Siberia), my uncle
Emilio Predieri, my uncle Antonio Persici, Mastrodicasa, the Berneri family, Luigi Fabbri
and his daughter Luce, Mioli, the painter Vezzani, Pio Turroni, Vella, Marzocchi and
Chessa along with many another Italian comrade whose name escapes me. All of these
comrades, virtually all of them dead now, were very well known in Italy and beyond.

In Paris and Marseilles my father joined with some other comrades to
form a bricklayers co-operative; the others included Gino Balestri, Edoardo Angeli,
Emilio Predieri, Tozi, Mioli, and Berneri worked with them for a short time, as did others
I have forgotten. The aim of their co-operative was to find work for comrades whose papers
were in order and others whose status was not regularised. Profits wen to the anarchist
movement. In search of work, they moved several times, to Vichy to build the casino there,
and worked on the casino in St Jean de Luz and worked in Nice on the Monte Carlo Sporting
Club. After two years in Nice they moved on to Marseilles for health reasons. After some
years, the French police, acting in cahoots with Mussolinis police, raided the house
one morning to arrest my father. They waited outside the house in a car for him to emerge,
aiming to pick him up and deliver him secretly to the Italian border. He was quick-witted
enough to evade capture, retreating inside the house where he was followed by two plain-
clothed policemen. We were therefore aware that he had been placed under arrest, as a
result of which they had to process his detention through proper channels. He was taken to
the Eveche (the main police station in Marseilles) and deported from France. Spain was the
only country that would take him and so he was taken to the Spanish border. The revolution
broke out there a few months later and he was involved in the early fighting in Barcelona
and along with some others he organised the influx of volunteers from all over. He worked
at the Italian Section in the FAI Regional Committee premises in Barcelona alongside
Berneri and Barbieri. Cavallina was the Italian vice-consul at the time. Many comrades
passed through there and on to the Huesca front and to other key places where the Italians
served. Siberia Giglioli, Castagnoli and another comrade who had been living in
Switzerland, saw to the reception of volunteers.

Following the murder of Berneri and Barbieri, he left for France,
living clandestinely in Brest for about two years. He fled Brest when the French police
came looking for him and another comrade, Lelli, and they headed for Marseilles to embark
clandestinely for Algeria to visit Edoardo Angeli who had been living in Algiers for
several years. Within 24 hours of their reaching Angelis home, the police burst in
and arrested all three of them. Angeli served several months and my father and Lelli were
jailed for a year. On leaving prison, all three of them left for Casablanca in Morocco.

In Casablanca they were to join the Moroccan resistance. After the
Liberation, my father returned to Italy where my mother and I joined him in Bologna. In
1947 we returned to Marseilles but my mother went back to Bologna for health reasons. When
my mother died, my father moved in with me in Marseilles and then in Nice where he died at
the age of 93. Throughout all this time he was an active member of the anarchist movement,
the USI and the CNT.

Vertice Persici. Umanita Nova, 6-11-1988

The
Albert Memorial:The Anarchist life and times of Albert
Meltzer (7 January 1920 - 7 May 1996)
An appreciation by Phil Ruff, with a postscript by Acrata.
Published by The Meltzer Press, October 1997. ISBN 1 901172 10 4

Printworker, writer, troublemaker, but above all a
tireless anarchist activist, Albert Meltzer is one of the most important figures in
twentieth century anarchism. Scourge of Liberals and tyrants, he never stood aside from
the struggle for a better world.

Written by Phil Ruff, a friend and collaborator of
Alberts since the 1970s, this is a tribute to the man described by the Special
Branch as "The doyen of the anarchist movement". Drawing from, and
expanding on, Albert Meltzers autobiography I Couldnt Paint Golden Angels,
this work runs from his introduction to the anarchist movement in the mid thirties,
right up to the 1990s.

On the way, it mentions all the historic events that
Albert Meltzer took part in; his support for Spanish anarchists in the Civil War; the
Cairo Mutiny; his involvement in the revival of Spanish resistance to Franco in the 1960s;
the creation of the Anarchist Black Cross and the increase of revolutionary anarchist
activity in the 1970s. The stories of some of the hundreds of comrades that Albert worked
alongside are mentioned: Jack White, Leah Feldman, Tom Brown, John Olday, Octavio
Alberola, Salvador Puig Antich, Stuart Christie, Miguel Garcia...

The Albert Memorial also contains Stuart Christies full
obituary of Albert, and his funeral tribute, as well as tributes from the CNT and his
close friend Simon McKeown. Acratas postscript deals with the feeble (and
unsuccessful) attempt to malign Alberts reputation, and is backed up by documents
from Octavio Alberola, active in the struggles which his detractors cant believe
existed. This well produced, illustrated A4 booklet deserves a home with everyone
interested in our revolutionary heritage, whether they were fortunate enough to know
Albert Meltzer or not.